Totally depends on the bullet. Some like to be 'jumped' others 'jammed'... A good starting point in having the bullet just touching the lands, load 5 rounds .005" jammed, 5 rounds .005" jumped, 5 rounded .010" jumped...etc until you find a recipe' your gun likes! Best of luck and be safe!
Mike
Don't want to sound stupid but what is the difference between .005 jumped or jammed? It's been awhile since I reloaded (20 years) and I never got to technical or just did things the way I was taught.
Magazine length can also be the limiting factor to bullet seating depth and could be used as a starting point. Some of the thinner VLD bullets may never feed through a magazine when loaded at the lands. Most of the common hunting bullets will contact the lands and will be shorter than magazine length.
Thanks for all the info guys!! I have always started a bullet in a resized,unprimed case and then put it in the gun and closed the bolt. Then set the die to that length and add a half turn to full turn to the stem. I never had a problem with feeding or extracting and always check to make sure. I just ordered a set of calipers and want to know exactly what I'm doing. I'm assuming I should load some test rounds 2 grains below max at jammed, .005 .010, .015 ect of the lands. Then play with charges once I find the preferred length. I will be using the 243 and 25-06 for deer. Probably try partitions, acubonds, and hornady bullets. My 270 wsm is a savage 116. It shoots factory Federal 140's with acubonds really well. I want to load the new long rang acubonds for it when they come out. I will use this for deer and elk. Thanks again!!
My 280AI Kimber won't touch the lands at mag length. Even more interesting is my 160 Accubonds won't eject at mag length. The tip of the bullet hits the front of the ejection port and is pulled free of the claw extractor falling back into the chamber. My load workup this summer will start at the max length I can consistently eject and go from there.
I wish I had that info handy but all my notes are sitting on my reloading bench about 6,000 miles away as the crow flies. I won't get back to start working up loads till June. I do plan on working up some Abond LR loads though so will see about posting up some results with info included.
One thing I would like to mention, and this is just how we reload and it works for all our rifles, is that we find out how much powder we can safely run with a bullet and then play with seating depth to get them to shoot.
I see a lot of guys will just play with different powder charges to see where their gun is most accurate and call it good. Many times we will run a ladder test or through a chrony until we find a max consistent speed and start seeing signs of pressure. Back off 1/2 grain and play with seating depth until we get a good depth that the gun likes. By loading this way you typically end up with a hotter shooting load that still shoots. Sometimes if we still don't find a depth that'll shoot, back off another 1/2 grain and it almost always starts printing good groups.
Just remember that different powders react differently to temp variances, and what may be safe in 20* may be too hot at 100*. One reason we prefer the Hodgen extreme powders as they are pretty reliable across a broad temp range.
Mike